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  • amanda0195
    • Apr 26, 2018
    • 13 min read

Presidents after World War I


1913 - 1921 - Woodrow Wilson (Dem.)

1921 - 1923 - Warren G. Harding (Rep.)

1923 - 1929 - Calvin Coolidge (Rep.)

1929 -,1933 - Herbert Hoover (Rep.)

1933 - 1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt (Dem.)

1945 - 1953 - Harry Truman (Dem.)

1953 - 1961 - Dwight D. Eisenhower (Rep.)

1961 - 1963 - John F. Kennedy (Dem.)

1963 - 1969 - Lyndon B. Johnson (Dem.)

1969 - 1974 - Richard M. Nixon (Rep.)

1974 - 1977 - Gerald R Ford (Rep.)

1977 - 1981 - Jimmy Carter (Dem.)

1981 - 1989 - Ronald Reagan (Rep.)

1989 - 1993 - George H. W. Bush (Rep.)

1993 - 2001 - Bill Clinton (Dem.)

2001 - 2009 - George W. Bush (Rep.)

2009 - 2017 - Barack Obama (Dem.)

2017 - present - Donald Trump (Rep.)

WARREN G. HARDING (1921 - 1923) Republican

  • BIO

  • From Ohio

  • Bought and ran the Marion Star newspaper

  • ELECTION

  • ​"Return to Normalcy"

  • DOMESTIC

  • Cabinet

  • Andrew Mellon, Sec. of Treasury

  • Reduced tax rates for wealthy, raised tariffs, ignored antitrust regulation

  • "Trickle down"

  • Immigration

  • Jun. 1921 - Sacco and Vanzetti trial

  • 1921 Quota Act (3% based on 1910 census) (see 1924)

  • Teapot Dome Scandal

  • Sec. of Interior Albert Fall leased government oil fields to private oil companies in exchange for bribes. First cabinet member to go to prison

CALVIN COOLIDGE (1923 - 1929) Republican


  • BIO

  • ​As governor of Mass. Coolidge called the National Guard to end the Boston police strike

  • Said "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime."

  • ELECTION

  • "Silent Cal"

  • DOMESTIC

  • (Jan. 1925) Scopes Monkey Trial (ACLU, Butler Act, Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan, Scopes guilty, fined $100)

  • Immigration

  • 1924 National Origins Act (2% based on 1890 census = fewer south/east Europe)

  • FOREIGN

  • Dawes Plan (1923)- aid to Germany

  • Treaty of Locarno (1925)- Fr/Ger agree not resort to war, Germany in League of Nations

  • Kellogg-Briand Pact (signed 1928, proclaimed 1929, text)

  • Pact between US and other Powers (UK, Fr, Japan, Germany etc.) pledging to "renounce war as instrument of national policy."

HERBERT HOOVER (1929-1933) Republican

  • BIO

  • ​Was Sec. of Commerce

  • ELECTION

  • ​Hoover won landslide over Al Smith of New York

  • Showed support for Republican policies and good times.

  • DOMESTIC

  • Economy

  • 1929 Great Depression (link)

  • Bull market reached peak, overproduction, underconsumption

  • American factories produced nearly 1/2 worlds industrial goods but uneven distribution of wealth, 80% of population didn't have a saving

  • Hoover believed "The crisis will be over in 60 days"

  • 1932 Reconstruction Finance Corporation

  • 1932 Bonus Army 20,000 WWI vets to DC.

  • Dust Bowl (Beginning in 1930)

  • Okies, John Steinbeck "Grapes of Wrath," Dorothea Lange

  • FOREIGN

  • Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930)- Highest in U.S. history (31-49%) led to retaliatory tariffs

  • Stimpson Doctrine (1932) - US would not recognize Japan's invasion of China (Manchukuo)

  • Began "Good Neighbor Policy" (see FDR)

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (1933 - 1945) Democrat

  • BIO

  • ​Was governor of New York

  • ELECTION

  • ​Easily defeated Hoover because of Depression, Bonus army etc.

  • Health: FDR was paralyzed form waist down because of Guillain-Barre syndrome

  • DOMESTIC

  • Economy - New Deal

  • Civil Rights

  • Aug. 4 1942 Bracero Program

  • From Sp. "manual laborer" using "arms")

  • Series of laws and diplomatic agreements with Mexico for farm labor

  • 1943 - Zoot suit riots, Los Angeles

  • FOREIGN

  • Good Neighbor Policy - Latin America

  • No more Dollar Diplomacy: businesses didn't have money to invest because of Depression

  • FDR wanted friendly Latin America because of growing German militarism

  • At Pan-American Conferences in Uruguay (1933) and in Argentina (1936) US delegates pledged US would not intervene in Latin affairs.

  • 1934 Congress nullified Platt amendment in Cuba (kept Guantanamo Bay)

  • 1938 Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas seized American-owned oil properties

  • FDR didn't intervene

  • But US continued to support dictators: Anastasio Somoza (Nicaragua), Rafael Trujillo Molina (Dominican Republic), Fulgencio Batista (Cuba)

  • USSR

  • FDR recognized the Communist regime in Russia, exchanged ambassadors

  • Philippines

  • Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934) - Philippines would be independent in 1946 and US military presence would gradually be removed.

  • Isolationism

  • 1934 Sen. Gerald P. Nye committee on "merchants of death"

  • 1935-37 Neutrality Acts banning loans and sales of weapons

  • Quarantine speech (Oct. 5, 1937)

  • Called for an international "quarantine" against the "epidemic of world lawlessness"

  • World War II

  • END

  • Died April 12, 1945

HARRY TRUMAN (1945 - 1953) Democrat

  • BIO

  • ​Vice President under FDR

  • ELECTION

  • ​Became president in 1945 after Roosevelt's death

  • Election of 1948

  • ​Truman (Dem)

  • Thomas Dewey (Rep.)

  • ​Appeared as if he would win "Dewey defeats Truman" headline.

  • Moderate progressive Republicans

  • Strom Thurmond (Dixiecrat)

  • ​Right-wing Southern Democrats frustrated with Truman.

  • Alliance formed by Hubert Humphrey

  • Segregationist policy and states' rights to legislate segregation

  • Henry Wallace (Progressive Party)

  • ​Progressive Party not related to Roosevelt's Party

  • Left-wing Democratic Party liberals and socialist "fellow travelers"

  • Wallace claimed to be true heir to FDR - wanted to expand New Deal

  • DOMESTIC

  • Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

  • Enacted over Truman's veto (he called it "slave labor law")

  • Reversed government's backing of labor movement, employees had right to refuse to join a union (outlawed "closed shop"

  • Fair Deal (1949)

  • Ambitious program to continue New Deal liberalism

  • Universal health insurance, Fair Employment Practices, repeal of Taft-Hartley

  • Congress (80th) dominated by conservatives and Southern Democrats sympathetic to Republicans behind Robert Taft

  • All of Truman's proposals were rejected by "do-nothing Congress."

  • Red Scare

  • 1947 Federal Employee Loyalty Program (Exec. Order 9835)

  • Invasive measures to identify/remove Communist sympathizers from govt.

  • HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee)

  • Created 1938 to investigate disloyalty and subversive activities

  • Persecuted "Hollywood Ten"(inc. Trumbo) and blacklisted 300 directors, actors etc. (incl. Charlie Chaplin, Orson Wells)

  • And govt. official Alger Hiss 1948) (accused of being a Soviet spy by Whittaker Chambers, charged with perjury in 1950.

  • Not associated with McCarthy

  • Joseph McCarthy

  • 1950 told Republican audience that he had list of 205 Communists who were working with the State Dept.

  • 1954 Accused army of infiltration of Communists, "Have you no decency?"

  • FOREIGN

  • Potsdam Agreement

  • Truman replaced FDR

  • Disagreements over Poland (Russia wanted buffer, West wanted democratic)

  • Russia didn't know about America's atomic bombs

  • End of World War II

  • Dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  • Cold War (Link)

  • George Kennan, Containment

  • Long Telegram

  • Truman Doctrine (Greece and Turkey)

  • Marshall Plan

  • 1948 - Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift

  • 1949 - Mao Zedong defeated Chiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi) in China

  • Taiwan recognized in UN Security Council

  • 1949 - NATO (Soviet counterpart, Warsaw Pact, 1955)

  • Japan

  • Douglas MacArthur helps Japanese created a constitution (Hirohito remains emperor)

  • Japan be9comes ally during Korean War

  • Korean War (1950-1953)

  • North Koreans invade below 38th parallel

  • Gen. Douglas MacArthur up to Yalu River, China threatened war, MacArthur fired

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1953 - 1961) Republican

  • BIO

  • ​Five-star General in WWII

  • Supreme Commander of Allied Expeditionary Force

  • Planned invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch) and D-Day

  • ELECTION

  • ​Eisenhower/Nixon (Rep) landslide victory against

  • Adlai Stevenson (Dem)

  • 22nd Amendment

  • ​Eisenhower was first president to have limit of two terms under 22nd Amend.

  • Passed after FDR's four terms.

  • DOMESTIC

  • "New Look" (1954)

  • Proclaimed by Sec. of State John Foster Dulles

  • Emphasized reliance on strategic nuclear weapons to deter potential threats

  • Massive Retaliation

  • Interstate Highway Act (1956)

  • Education

  • NASA (Jul. 1958)

  • Court Cases

  • 1954 Brown v. Board of Education

  • Red Scare

  • ​McCarthyism (1954)

  • FOREIGN

  • Cold War

  • John Foster Dulles (Sec. of State)

  • Brinkmanship, Massive Retaliation, MAD

  • Hydrogen bomb

  • Oct. 4, 1957 Soviets launched Sputnik, 1st satellite

  • Korean War (1950-53)

  • Ended under Eisenhower

  • Iran

  • CIA supports coup to overthrow PM Mossadegh (1953)

  • Vietnam War (1955-1975)

  • 1954 - French defeated at Dien Bien Phu

  • Suez Crisis

  • U.K, France, Israel invaded Egypt after Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal ("Operation Kadesh") US

  • Nasser claimed to be "neutral" in the Cold War but accepting aid from Soviets.

  • In response: Eisenhower Doctrine (Jan. 5, 1957)

  • A Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression.

  • To give Middle Eastern countries an alternative to accepting Russian aid.

  • Important because of Mid East oil.

  • Cuba

  • Fidel Castro defeated Batista (1959)

  • OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) created in 1960

JOHN F. KENNEDY (1961 - 1963) Democrat

  • BIO

  • ​Wife Jacqueline Kennedy

  • JFK had affairs (including Marilyn Monroe)

  • ELECTION

  • ​New Frontier Speech (1960)

  • "We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier -- the frontier of the 1960s, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats. -- Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science nd space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus."​

  • "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

  • Camelot

  • DOMESTIC

  • Civil Rights

  • 1961 Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded United Farm Workers

  • 1963 MLK March on Washington

  • Environment

  • 1962 - Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" describing how modern society is poisoning earth (especially with DDT pesticide)

  • Poverty

  • Michael Harrington wrote "The Other America"

  • About the persistence of poverty in America (he cited 50 million), especially immigrants, urban African-Africans, aged, handicapped.

  • Harrington, a socialist, later worked with LBJ on the "War on Poverty."

  • Court cases (Chief Justice Earl Warren 1953-1969)

  • Baker v. Carr (1962) -States to redraw district lines to increase power of under-represented.

  • Engel v. Vitale (1962) - Banned school prayer

  • Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)- Defendant has right to legal council

  • FOREIGN

  • Cold War

  • Flexible Response (v. Massive Retaliation)

  • Cuba

  • 1961 Bay of Pigs

  • Oct. 1962 - Cuban Mrissile Crisis

  • Latin America

  • 1961 Peace Corps

  • Vietnam

  • Sent 15,000 "advisers"

  • END

  • Killed by Lee Harvey Oswald

LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1963 - 1969) Democrat

  • BIO

  • ​Born in Texas

  • ELECTION

  • ​Vice President under John F. Kennedy

  • DOMESTIC

  • Great Society

  • Medicare, Medicaid, NEA, NEH, Immigration, Civil Rights Act, War on Poverty

  • Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

  • Encouraged immigration from countries other Europe

  • Civil Rights

  • 24th Amendment - ended Poll Tax

  • Voting Rights Act - ended literacy tests

  • Civil Rights Act 1964

  • Court cases (Chief Justice Earl Warren 1953-1969)

  • ​Miranda v. Arizona (1966) -

  • FOREIGN

  • Vietnam War

  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 1964

RICHARD M. NIXON (1969 - 1974) Republican

  • BIO

  • ​Born in California

  • Participated in the Alger Hiss Case- established his reputation as anti-communist

  • ELECTION

  • ​Ran against JFK in 1960, lost

  • Election of 1968

  • Nixon (Republican)

  • Hubert Humphrey (Democrat)

  • DOMESTIC

  • Gay liberation/Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village NYC (1969)

  • Series of spontaneous demonstrations by LGBT community against police raid at Stonewall Inn, a mafia-owned bar that catered to gay and transgender clients.

  • Native Americans/AIM (American Indian Movement) created 1968

  • Members occupied Alcatraz in San Francisco to draw attention to Indian issues

  • In 1972, they protected in DC ("Trail of Broken Treaties"). Occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs

  • 1973 AIM took over site at Wounded Knee to protest Indian policy (violence).

  • Internal dissension caused AIM to disband in 1978

  • Vice President

  • Spiro Agnew resigned 1973, Gerald Ford appointed by Nixon (25th Amendment)

  • FOREIGN

  • Vietnam

  • Secretly bombed neutral Cambodia (caused rise of Khmer Rouge)

  • Enacted Vietnamization (shifting burden of war to Vietnamese)

  • Cold War

  • Detente

  • Began 1969

  • Visited Mao Zedong

  • Visited Brezhnev

  • END

  • Nixon resigned before he could be impeached

GERALD R. FORD (1974 - 1977) Republican

  • BIO

  • ​Was appointed Vice President by Nixon after Spiro Agnew resigned.

  • ELECTION

  • ​Became president after Nixon's resigtation, the only President never elected

  • DOMESTIC

  • Pardoned Richard Nixon

  • WIN - Whip Inflation Now

  • FOREIGN

  • Watched as Vietnam fell to North Vietnamese

  • 1975 Helsinki Accords - to improve relations between Communists and West

JIMMY CARTER (1977 - 1981) Democrat

  • BIO

  • ​Peanut farmer

  • Governor of Georgia

  • ELECTION

  • ​Gerald Ford (Rep) and Bob Dole

  • Jimmy Carter (Dem) and Walter Mondale

  • Ford unpopular because of association with Nixon and pardon.

  • Carter was outsider

  • DOMESTIC

  • FOREIGN

  • 1979 Iranian Revolution

  • 1979 Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan

  • Carter pulled out of SALT, boycotted Olympics

  • END

RONALD REAGAN (1981 - 1989) Republican

  • BIO

  • ​Actor

  • President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG)

  • Former Governor of California

  • ELECTION

  • ​1980

  • ​Reagan Democrats: traditionally Democratic voters, esp. white, working-class Rust Belt voters, who voted for Republican Reagan

  • 1984

  • ​Reagan/Bush (won 49 states)

  • ​Touted strong economic recovery from 1970s

  • Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro (1st woman to serve of major party ticket)

  • ​Criticized supply-side economic policy and budge deficits

  • Called for nuclear freeze and ratification of ERAA

  • DOMESTIC

  • "Make America Great Again"

  • Teflon President

  • Nickname for Reagan's presidency since criticism and blame didn't stick to him.

  • Economy

  • Reaganomics, "trickle down theory"

  • Cut taxes on wealthy to stimulate investment

  • But wealthy bought more luxuries from abroad

  • Impact: created huge deficits - $200-$300 billion/year

  • Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act

  • Across-the-board spending cuts

  • Cut domestic discretionary spending

  • Christianity

  • 1989 Christian Coalition founded by Pat Robertson

  • Crusaded against gay rights, abortion, secularism in public schools

  • Reagan proposed constitutional amendment on school prayer

  • Challenged 1962 Engel v. Vitale prohibiting state officials from composing an official state prayer

  • War on Drugs 1982

  • Said illicit drugs were threat to national security

  • Came down heavier on Crack (cheaper) than Cocaine

  • Nancy Reagan "Just Say No"

  • HIV/AIDS

  • HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) started in primates (chimpanzees/gorillas) and jumped to humans in Africa, from Africa to Haiti, from Haiti to NY 1971, then SF 1976.

  • AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) - result of untreated HIV

  • Reagan was silent about AIDS epidemic since it generally spread among the gay community.

  • Assassination attempt

  • John Hinckley Jr. tried to kill Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster

  • Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, also shot and partially paralyzed

  • FOREIGN

  • Cold War

  • Increased spending on weapons - arms race

  • SDI ("Star Wars") 1983

  • Proposed missile defense system to protect US from intercontinental ballistic missiles. Scientists were recruited to try to design a system but it was criticized because it would eliminate safety of MAD. Ended in 1993.

  • INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) signed with USSR in 1987 to eliminate intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. It eliminated all nuclear and conventional missiles and their launchers with ranges of 310-3,420 miles.

  • Korean Air Lines 007 (Sep. 1, 1983)

  • Scheduled from NYC to Seoul, Korea over Alaska, shot down by Soviet Interceptor aircraft because it flew through Soviet prohibited airspace because they thought it was a U.S. spy plane killed all 269 passengers and crew. Soviets denied involvement. Caused anti-Soviet sentiment in US, GPS now used worldwide.

  • Marines in Lebanon

  • Grenada 1989

  • After Maurice Bishop (aid from Cuba etc.) was killed by Marxist Bernard Coard

  • El Salvador

  • Civil War between military government and leftist coalition Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) (which was aided by Cuba and Nicaraguan Sandinists)

  • Iran-Contra Affair

  • Boland Amendment prohibited funding of Contras

  • US officially supported Iraq in Iran-Iraq War (1980-88)

  • Reagan said the US would not negotiate with terrorists

  • But money was approved to send weapons to Iran to get Iran to help negotiate to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon, some of the money was used to fund Contras

  • END

GEORGE H. W. BUSH (1989 - 1993) Republican

  • BIO

  • ELECTION 1988

  • ​George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle v. Michael Dukakis and Bentsen

  • Bush capitalized on good economy and Reagan's popularity, said Dukakis was a "Massachusetts liberal"

  • At Republican National Convention, Bush said "Read my lips: no new taxes" (he raised taxes anyway to reduce budget deficit)

  • DOMESTIC

  • 1992 riots in Los Angeles after 4 police found not guilty in beating of black driver Rodney King (caught on video tape). 52 died in riot, $1 billion damage (compare to Watts Riots 1965)

  • Supreme Court

  • Appointed Clarence Thomas in 1991 to replace Thurgood Marshall

  • Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill

  • Exxon-Valdez oil spill (Mar. 24, 1989)

  • Oil tanker off the coast of California spilled more than 10 million gallons of crude oil causing an enviromental disaster.

  • FOREIGN

  • Panama (1989)

  • Noriega had been recruited by CIA to help stop spread of Communism in C. America until he became involved in drug trafficking in 1977. In 1979 he was hired back by CIA after Marxist Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua in 1979.

  • In 1983 he became dictator.

  • US invaded Panama in 1989 to overthrow him on charges of drug trafficking, suppressing democracy and endangering Americans. Noriega surrendered 1990.

  • China

  • 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy students

  • Eastern Europe/Soviet Union

  • Poland under Lech Walesa (Solidarity) left Communist sphere in 1989

  • Followed by Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania

  • Berlin Wall in East Germany was taken down

  • Germany reunified in 1990, Baltic republics declare independence

  • End of Cold War 1991

  • Bush/Gorbachev signed START I reducing nuclear warheads

  • Soviet Union collapsed after failed coup against Gorbachev in August 1991

  • Coup was put down by Yeltsin (president of Russian SSR)

  • Gorbachev resigned in Dec. 1991

  • Yeltsin became leader of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1992

  • Bush and Yeltsin sign START II treaty in 1992 -->US economic help to Russia

  • Somalia

  • Humanitarian disaster in Somalia and breakdown of order

  • US humanitarian aid (Operation Restore Hope/United Task Force UNITAF) 1992

  • Battle of Mogadishu 1993 between US forces and militia fighters - subject of movie "Black Hawk Down"

  • Gulf War against Saddam Hussein 1992-3

  • After Hussein attacked Kuwait

BILL CLINTON (1993 - 2001) Democrat

  • BIO

  • Full name: William Jefferson Clinton

  • Was ​Governor of Arkansas

  • Married to 2016 presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton

  • 1993 Hillary and Bill were under investigation for Arkansas real-estate deal (Whitewater), prosecutor Kenneth Starr shifted focus to Lewinsky.

  • ELECTION

  • ​Defeated

  • George H.W. Bush - incumbent Republican

  • ​H. Ross Perot was a Texas billionaire running as independent

  • At age 46, he was 3rd youngest president, first Baby Boomer

  • DOMESTIC

  • Promises

  • "Age of big government is over"

  • Clinton was liberal culturally and socially but after 1980 was as business-friendly as Reagan - cut social programs

  • Clinton was accused of changing positions to get elected

  • earned nickname "slick Willie"

  • Civil Rights

  • "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - homosexuals in the military, 1994

  • Immigration

  • Proposition 187 (1994)

  • California - denied illegal immigrants and children access to welfare, education and most health services. Implementation barred by courts.

  • Domestic terrorism

  • Al Qaeda exploded truck bomb at World Trade Center killing six 1993

  • WACO siege in Texas (Apr. 1993)

  • Compound Branch Davidian sect (followers of David Koresh) suspected of stockpiling illegal weapons raided by ATF agents. Fire killed 76 including Koresh and many children. Inspired Timothy McVeigh

  • Timothy McVeigh (member of militant anti-government movement) (1995)

  • Exploded bomb at a federal office building in Oklahoma City, 168 dead (incl. children)

  • Economics

  • Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act 1999-repealed part of Glass-Steagall Act of 1933

  • By 2000 23 states had passed English only laws.

  • Court cases:

  • Casey v. Planned Parenthood - reaffirmed right to abort

  • FOREIGN

  • NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), (Dec. 1993)

  • Eliminated barriers to imports from Mexico and Canada, maquiladoras.

  • Kyoto Protocol (1997)

  • Signed by 180 countries, to reduce output of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels to end global warming, US pulled out under Bush

  • Yugoslavia

  • Serbian ethnic ceansing under SlobodanMilosevic

  • Clinton Doctrine

  • After Kosovo crisis, Clinton said US would intervene to prevent human rights abuses when it could do so without suffering substantial casualties - without the authority of the UN Security Council

  • IMPEACHMENT

  • 1998, Monica Lewinsky scandal. Clinton impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice

GEORGE W. BUSH (2001 - 2009) Republican

  • BIO

  • ​Son of Gorge H.W. Bush, brother to Florida Governor Jeb Bush

  • ELECTION

  • Candidates: Bush and Dick Cheney v. Al Gore and Joe Lieberman (1st Jewish)

  • Both won almost equal popular votes

  • Votes in Florida were very close - a few hundred votes. (29 electoral votes)

  • Jeb Bush, Florida's governor, was Bush's brother

  • Democrats demanded recount, counters checking or "hanging chads"

  • DOMESTIC

  • Sept. 11 2001 - four planes hijacked by terrorists flew into Twin Towers, Pentagon and crashed in a field. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda took responsibility.

  • USA PATRIOT Act (Oct. 26, 2001)

  • Full name: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.

  • 300 pages, authorizing the govt. to spy on citizens, open letters, red emails etc. 5,000 Mid East foreigners rounded up, 1,200 arrested

  • No Child Left Behind

  • Nationwide testing

  • FOREIGN

  • War in Afghanistan (2001)

  • Against Taliban after they refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden

  • Guantanamo Bay

  • People captured in Afghanistan or accused of terrorism kept prisoner in U.S. Naval base in Cuba.

  • "Axis of Evil" speech (North Korea, Iraq, Iran), Jan. 2002

  • Bush Doctrine (Sep 2002) text

  • Security confronting US is different from before.

  • It's the first duty of the US Govt. to protect American interests and people

  • US will act preemptively in self-defense.

  • War in Iraq against Saddam Hussein (Mar. 2003)

  • "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

  • Prompted by Neocons Dick Cheney (VP), Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz

  • On basis that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction

  • Sec. of State Colin Powell objected

  • Abu Ghraib prison (2004)

  • Series of human rights violations against POWs in Iraq: torture, sodomy, humiliation etc. Photos published, including those of soldier Lynndie England posing with naked Iraqi prisoners and hooded prisoners on a box

  • END

BARACK OBAMA (2009 - 2017) Democrat

  • BIO

  • ELECTION

  • DOMESTIC

  • Marriage equality

  • Obergefell v. Hodges 2015

  • said 14th Amendment protected right of same sex couples to marry

  • Affordable Care Act (ACA)

  • Passed without a single Republican vote

  • Tea party

  • United group of conservatives and libertarians who objected to Obamacare, abortion, gun control, undocumented immigration.

  • Republicans in House

  • FOREIGN

  • ​Captured/killed Osama bin Laden (2011)

DONALD TRUMP (2017 - present) Republican

  • BIO

  • ELECTION

  • DOMESTIC

  • FOREIGN

  • END


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